Voice response systems (also termed voice messaging systems, voice mail systems or voice response units) attach to the telephone network, often via a PBX, and can be used to store messages from incoming calls when the intended addressee is unable to personally answer the call. The intended addressee can then listen to their stored messages at some future time. A voice response system is generally implemented using either a special purpose computer or a standard computer workstation equipped with a suitable telephony interface. Such voice response systems are well-known; one example is the DirectTalk/6000 voice response system available from IBM Corporation. Other examples of voice response systems are described in, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,136,648 and EPA 0588576.
Voice response systems are used by large organisations, such as banks, insurance companies and the like, which have, as part of their daily operation, a need to deal effectively with a significant number of telephone enquiries. The voice response systems used by these companies are arranged to provide various telephony and call answering functions, such as providing automatic telephone responses to callers dialling from a conventional telephone, screen phone, fax machine or personal computer, by way of control or voice applications. A control or voice application governs the operation of the voice response system and may be executed whenever an incoming call is detected and enables the voice response system to answer the incoming call, output various voice menus to the caller, receive inputs, such as DTMF tones or voice, from the caller, perform functions according to the inputs etc. As an example, a voice application program can be designed which will allow a caller to dial their bank to enquire as to the status of their account and allow the voice response system to output that status over the telephone line. A voice application can be built up from voice application primitives. The primitives provide specific functions such as detecting a DTMF tone or outputting a voice segment to the caller's telephone.
Conventionally, voice response systems provide a graphical user interface to allow the system to be programmed by people who do not necessarily have extensive programming skills. The primitives or functions are presented graphically and the programmer selects the desired functions in the order in which execution is preferred. Once all primitives have been selected they are saved and together constitute a voice application program. The DirectTalk/6000 voice response system from IBM Corporation provides a Voice Application Generator to facilitate the above. Further details of the Voice Application Generator are available in the Voice Application Development Guide SC22-0102 available from IBM Corporation.
The graphical user interface may comprise, for example, X-Windows, Motif and OS/2 Presentation Manager or a direct Windows interface, that is to say, an interface which executes on the voice response system itself or on a workstation connected to a local area network to which the voice response system is also connected.
For those companies providing a centralised service or those which contract out their voice response system needs, the provision of access to their voice response system represents a significant problem. A user, such as a bank, of such a centralised or outsourced voice response system may be a great distance from the voice response system. Any interaction with the voice response system would require either personnel to be sent to the location of the voice response system to use a locally connected terminal or a leased line connection between a terminal of the user and the voice response system. The use of such a leased line connection is very expensive and also requires a terminal which is capable of running a platform specific windowing system, such X-Windows, to be able to access the user interface of the remote voice response system.